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First, a shower, followed by a cup of coffee — brewed using water, of course. Then, a glass of actual water before I brush my teeth.

Packing my snacks and lunch for the day, everything I eat water made possible. Vegetables are obviously grown with water, cheese is made from the milk of a cow, which drinks water, and any meat I eat came from an animal that once also relied on water to survive.

Not only do I rely on water, so do the things surrounding me. My dogs, trees and bushes in my yard and my garden all need water too.

While life itself is sustained by water, I and many of you take freshwater for granted.

When we turn on the faucet, it produces water we can drink and cook and clean with.

In Arizona, many people are water conscious because we are forced to be.

There is only so much water in the desert, and we’ve learned to use it with conservation in mind.

However, we still have clean, freshwater available to meet our needs, which isn’t the case for everyone in the world.

Thursday, March 22, was the 19th year countries across the globe recognized World Water Day.

In 1992, a worldwide celebration of freshwater was recommended at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The next year, the United Nations General Assembly declared March 22 World Water Day to highlight aspects of freshwater’s importance to society.

This year’s theme was water and food security. The campaign talked about drought being the No. 1 challenge for attaining food security, which means everyone at all times has physical and economic access to healthy, nutritious food.

According to World Water Day’s official website, water scarcity affects 40 percent of the 7 billion people on the planet, and by 2025, two-thirds of the world population could be living in water-stressed situations limiting the ability to produce food.

While the situation could become dire, we aren’t there yet, and we can do something to change our course.

We need to make sure what we use now is used efficiently, and begin exploring reuse options. We can’t be afraid to produce food using drainage or brackish water and effluent treated to A-plus standards to produce food.

Take a moment and look at how water influences your life, and I bet you’ll find it trickles into every aspect. Then, think about how that would all change if you lived in a water-stressed region.